Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

Hello guys! Nice to see you! So, as I said, TW for abuse, none of it is really vivid, although there are some parts that go a little too close for comfort into it.

YOU NEED TO KNOW: I do not support Dash's actions of violence and bullying shown in the cartoon. I think bullying is stupid, but I do want to express his reasons. Also, this starts to include Danny more in later chapters.

MORE NEED TO KNOW: Again. TW for child abuse and rated T for language!

Special thanks to my best friend, Hollyflash for helping me come up with a story arch for this. And thanks to GGCharms and sunnywinterclouds for beta reading.

And one more thing! This is from Dash's point of view, so some of the things said about other people in this chapter are not necessarily true, and that will come to light later in the story. Also, psychologically speaking, this being the reason behind Dash's violence does makes sense, violence pretty much only spawns from violence given this is not always true.

Alone. He had spent hours alone, with no company but the memories that still haunted his dreams; the memories of pain, suffering and death, the nightmares that had long since become reality. It felt as if every time he closed his eyes, her image appeared, taunting him, giving him a small shred of hop, hope that life could go back to the way it was. But she took that away, of course, just as she had taken it away when she had left him at the hands of his merciless father. She had abandoned him, and not a day went by when he didn't think about what he must have done wrong, what he did to make her leave him behind.

Dash Baxter, the abandoned and forgotten boy, stared out his bedroom window as the dreaded thoughts of life floated through his mind. The yelling of his father echoed throughout the house. No doubt he was on the phone, talking to one concerned family member or another. Or maybe the bank, considering that his father's drinking problem made it hard to pay the bills. Dash knew that it was only a matter of time before that anger was turned his way, and new bruises would have to be hidden.

The teenager cringed at that thought. Mr. Baxter's rage was no secret among the adults of Amity Park, but nobody did a thing about it. Dash used to wonder why that was, but as he grew older, he realized that it was because nobody really cared about him. Nobody except his best friend Kwan, of course.

A loud sigh escaped Dash's throat. He knew that there would be no way to avoid the beating that he would receive that day, yet Kwan would still feel guilty, just as he did all of the other times. Never mind the fact that it wasn't even remotely his fault.

Kwan was really the only reason that Dash was still alive. He would hold on through life and death for his best friend. Kwan had been there for Dash when nobody else had, when his mother left and when his father turned the full extent of his violence upon his own son. In truth, Kwan was the only one that fully knew what was going on behind closed doors in the Baxter household. Dash's main excuse for the cuts and bruises, football practice, seemed to fool even the most curious of people. Regardless of his ability to cover for everyone else, he could never get around Kwan. The boy always seemed to know when Dash was lying, no matter how good at it he was getting.

Kwan had always tried to understand what Dash was going through, but he never could. The pain his father inflicted could never be held, but his father wasn't even the worst. In the end it was his mother that destroyed Dash everyday. Of all the things that happened to him, of all the good and bad memories, his mother leaving had affected him the most.

He still remembered the day she left, the day his life changed forever. There was yelling. His father was angry, but she was cold. They fought as Dash hid away from them and listened, unable to hide his innocent ears from the clash of voices…

"I'm leaving! I'm leaving and there's nothing you can do to stop me, you fucking bastard!" she had yelled. "I'm going somewhere where you'll never find me!"

"No you aren't, you little bitch!" he had yelled back at her, his angry blazing more fiercely than Dash had ever seen before, or after.

"Get the fuck out of my way Kevin!" She had so rarely called him by his name, "I will not stand here and fight. I'm leaving and you're not going to stop me!" Her own anger was flaring brightly.

"Oh yes there is, I can beat you until you can't walk!" he screamed. His anger just kept soaring higher and higher, like a volcano about to erupt, an earthquake about to hit, a tsunami about to strike land.

"You wouldn't dare," Dash's mother hissed. "My sister knows I'm leaving. If I don't call her in five minutes she's calling the fucking cops!"

"Sarah Baxter! You took your wedding vows as a Catholic woman! You will not leave this house. As for the cops, fuck 'em. It takes about five minutes for them to reach this house. I can kill you in three!"

"I will do whatever I damn well please you fucking bastard. My religion isn't going to stop me, and neither are you! Now get out of my way before I make you move!"

"What about your son? You little shit. You're just going to leave him behind?" her husband countered. "Where is that worthless thing anyways?"

"You can have him!" Sarah screamed. "Make him clean, throw him out on the streets, kill him! I don't give a fuck! He's your kid, too, so guess what? He isn't my problem."

"Well he isn't my problem either, you fucking shit!" Kevin howled. "You aren't leaving this house!"

"Watch me, bastard!" she shouted before taking a step towards him and the door.

"No, you are not leaving. Take one more step forward and I will fucking strangle you. You understand? Or do I need to speak slower so that your puny brain can comprehend what I'm saying!"

"You think that you can stop me? After all of this you think you can STOP me?" Sarah said. Her voice was eerily calm.

"I own you, you little bitch!" Kevin screeched.

"No you don't. You're a worthless drunk!" Sarah picked up a half-empty bottle of scotch that sat on the table next to where she stood, and before he even knew what was happening, she smashed it over her husband's head, knocking him out cold. "Bastard," she whispered, before grabbing her suitcase from behind her.

Hearing a bottle break and then an eerie silence, young Dash came out of his hiding place. "Mom?" he asked, as he saw her picked up her bag.

"Oh, you," she ground out through clenched teeth.

"Mom, are you leaving?" Dash asked, trying to hold back his fear and shock.

"Yes. I am. And guess what? You aren't coming, you useless kid," she informed her seven year old son. "Don't you dare start to fucking cry!" she shouted at him, as tears began to roll down his cheeks. They didn't stop. In fact, he just began to cry harder.

"Mommy, please don't leave me!" he screamed, and ran to her, clinging onto her legs as he cried. She pushed him away.

"Dashiel, I am starting a new life, one that you don't get to be part of. One that you don't get to ruin."

And just like that, she picked up her bag and walked out the front door. Dash ran after her.

"Mommy, please don't go! Please don't leave me here!" he called, but she ignored him. Sarah Baxter turned on the car and drove off without so much as a look back. She left her own son behind standing in the dust.

From that day on, Dash always wondered what he did. Did he cry too much? Did he ask for too much? Was he not good enough? The beating he received when his dad woke up was one of the worst he had ever gotten in his life, which was saying something. He had honestly thought that his father was going to kill him. That was the first night Kwan had realized what was happening to his best friend. He had come to see if Dash could come out to play, but nobody had answered, and the door had been open. He had walked into the house, seen the broken glass, the puddles alcohol, the toppled furniture, and Dash. The seven year old little boy was curled up on the floor in tears, blood still dripping from a few cuts that his father had inflicted.

"Dash?" he had asked, his voice high pitched and filled with worry.

"Kwan?" he'd whispered, without looking up. "Is he gone?"

Kwan cocked his head to the side "Is who gone? The person that hurt you?" He hadn't known the hell that the simple question would release.

"My dad," was all Dash could choke out.

Just like that, Dash had told his best friend a secret that no one else could ever learn. The secret symbolized the few words between life and death. After all, if Dash's father ever found out he had told anyone about his life, he would be killed faster than he could pick up a phone.

The only thing was, Dash had lied even after that. He had explained to Kwan that it had happened just that one time, and it would never happen again. He kept it up for six years, until he broke one day and came clean about everything. Kwan had never believed him about the bruises again. Although Dash had tried everything to tell his best friend that he had over reacted, it never worked. Kwan felt guilty, that much Dash could see. He just wished that he could keep his pain out of Kwan's life; the boy had enough trouble on his own.

It seemed that everyone in Amity Park had crappy lives. Dash was being beaten by his father. Kwan's parents were divorced, his dad lived in Chicago and never even bothered to speak to his former family – after all, he had a new wife and new children to spend time with. Star, the perfect blonde, the stupid girl, her family was the most religious that Dash had ever met. Star wasn't allowed to even speak to people who cursed or 'sinned' in any way. Hell, at home she wasn't even allowed to speak unless spoken to first. Her family strongly believed in the old values of women. The great and wonderful Paulina also had a shit life; her parents were never home. Her dad worked in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Houston, he was the CEO of some mega corporation. Her mother was a rich trophy wife who spent her days on the sunny beaches of California and Florida, or traveling the globe. They barely even saw their daughter, and to make up for their guilt, they bought her overly expensive gifts.

They all had horrible things going on, but they never would let anybody guess. The thing that bugged Dash was that there was one person in all of Amity Park that had a perfect life, and yet he still complained about it; Danny Fenton. Two wonderful parents who loved him, a sister who watched out for him… his life was perfect. Dash couldn't stand it. Even Manson and Foley's lives weren't as amazing as Fenton's. Manson had parents pushing her to be something she wasn't. Foley's family was having money issues, not that that he'd ever tell anyone that. And then there was Fenton, with his oh-so perfect life.

After a moment, Dash was snapped out of his viscously poisonous thoughts by silence, complete and utter silence. The house had gone into an eerie state of calm, much like the calm before a massive storm that leaves nothing behind in its wake. Suddenly, there was a creak on the stairs. Dash's heart rate skipped a beat. Knowing that there was nothing he could do didn't stop the fear from circling around him. There, another creak, that one closer to him room than the last. Dash's breathe sped up. The anticipation was the worst, and this was the worst part of it.

And then the door swung open. His heart pounded so loudly in his chest that he could have sworn his father could hear it. His nostrils flared with the scent of hard alcohol. The smell made him dizzy, but he still pretended not to notice his father standing in the doorway. Instead, Dash acted as if he were immersed in the notepad and a textbook open on his desk, hoping it would come off like he was studying. Not that it mattered.

"That was your school on the phone," Dash's father informed him. "You've been causing trouble at school?"

Fear clogged his throat. As usual, Dash had no idea what to say. He'd spend hours coming up with ways to explain himself to his father, methods of wriggling out of his fury, but the words always got caught in his breath before they could make it out into the open.

"I don't hear an answer."

Dash took in a breath. "I don't know what you're talking about," Dash informed his father in the politest way possible.

"Don't lie to me, you worthless shit!" his father screamed, temper rising. "I'm tired of your constant bullshit!"

Before Dash could even think, he was thrown to the floor. When a foot hit his side, he could have sworn that he felt something snap.

Hope you maybe enjoyed that? Review, follow and favorite, let me know if it is worth continuing, if nobody likes it, than I simply wont continue to post chapters. I know that this is an awkward topic to talk about and read about, but thanks for reading this. Let me know if you spot any spelling and grammar mistakes that I missed, but there shouldn't be any. Ta-ta for now!